


Spar Me, Bug Me

by Brezifus



Category: Code Lyoko
Genre: Bugs & Insects, F/M, Gen, Injury, Making Up, Sparring, Violence, XANA attack, a bit canon atypical but then again not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 08:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18139910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brezifus/pseuds/Brezifus
Summary: XANA manufactures a microbot to take over one of the gang, which results in a previous sparring match becoming a bit too real for comfort.





	Spar Me, Bug Me

**Author's Note:**

> squick cw: buggy bots going into ears (i apparently had a wrath of khan problem back in the day when it came to code lyoko fics) minor injury and slightly more than typical violence (in a sense...)
> 
> i lov.............the monster of the week episodes. so here's a monster of the week episode. also i'm ulumi until die.
> 
> originally posted to tumblr sometime in 2015

Jeremie blinked blearily at his computer screen. It was early in the morning; so early the sun hadn’t even started to come up yet. But something was active in the factory. He had half a mind to get up and go investigate what it would be since he couldn’t tell just from his dorm room, but if Aelita caught wind he’d never hear the end of it from her. Still, if it was something bad she wouldn’t even think to blame him in the end if it would prevent something.

Yet it wasn’t the supercalculator  _itself_  that was being active; just some unused part of the factory. Maybe a glitch in the system, or a power surge. It had stormed pretty badly yesterday evening, it wouldn’t be  _too_ much of a surprise.

Jeremie yawned, putting his glasses aside before he crawled back into bed. Whatever it was, it could wait after morning classes were over.

 

~~

 

Yumi took the pause to brush a sweaty lock of hair behind her ear. It has fallen loose from her ponytail from the intensity of the sparring match. Ulrich was hopping on the balls of his feet, sweat beading on the sides of his face. A toothy smirk pushed up one of his cheeks. Moments like this were the only times he smiled so freely, Yumi realized. This was good for him, and from the heat pumping in her veins she knew it was good for her too.

The hop in Ulrich’s steps changed ever so slightly, unseen by anyone unfamiliar with his techniques, but Yumi hadn’t been sparring with him this long just to miss such a cue like that. Ulrich dropped low and rushed her, Yumi exhaled and dodged, using his momentum against him in an attempt to send him flying. His balance was too good, he expected too much of her movements the way she expected his. He turned as his feet did and at once they were back into a flurry of punches, blocks, and kicks.

Other students milled about, ones that were learning martial arts like them and others who had simply come to watch the show. Jim was instructing all the others that weren’t Ulrich and Yumi. Being Kadic’s star athletes had small advantages like that, no one wanted to get in the middle of their fights. It was safer to stay out of it. How much attention they  _really_ gained was lost on them. All focus was on the other.

There was a flash of fire in Yumi’s eyes and she slipped, intentionally. Ulrich started, for a split-second torn between letting her regain herself and attacking while her guard was interrupted. It didn’t last long before he went with the latter option, which was exactly what Yumi was banking on. Ulrich had readied himself for a powerful attack, briefly turning his body towards Yumi. In that brief moment her leg raised and pulled back before she slammed it directly into Ulrich’s chest just as he started to move forward. Her heel had smashed into his solar plexus and the boy stumbled backwards with a dry gasp of shock. Yumi straightened herself out, feeling a short moment of triumph before Ulrich fell straight back onto his ass, wheezing and coughing. She had completely knocked the wind out of him and he was struggling to regain it.

Breathy laughter left her, laughter she was trying to quell and stop as she approached him. All heads had turned towards them now as Ulrich kept coughing, Jim’s especially.

“Hey,” Yumi panted, still trying to stifle laughter, “You alright, there?”

Ulrich answered with an impressed glare, continued to heave and wheeze. Yumi’s brow turned upwards, and though the smile was still on her face the concern was plain to see in her eyes.

“Jesus, I’m sorry!” she apologized, holding her hand out for him and starting to feel self-conscious at the audience they had gained.

Ulrich coughed, “No, no you aren’t,” he managed to croak out before coughing again. Yumi twisted her mouth.

“Okay, but I really  _am,_ a little.”

“Sure,” Ulrich muttered, finally breathing with some regularity. Waving Jim’s hovering form off and refusing Yumi’s hand, he sat there, letting himself breathe and regain his lungs. When he had calmed down quite a bit Yumi opened her mouth to comment on their match when his legs shot out, catching her ankles. She soon found her ass on the mats with him, caught completely off-guard. Wind rushed out of her, not nearly as bad as she had done to him, and she sat there, stunned for a moment before looking up at him.

“I don’t know whether to call this a tie or a momentary  _truce_ , Stern.”

Ulrich breathed deeply, smirking at his comeback, “Why, are you gonna hold me responsible for this later?”

“I just might,” Yumi threatened. Ulrich scoffed lightly, but the match—for the moment—was officially done. After several more moments of recuperation, the two helped each other to their feet, both doing their best to ignore the students around them as they retreated back to their gym bags. Comfortable with the silence passing between them, neither of them said a word as dug out their water bottles and their phones.

Yumi frowned a little, the frown becoming a wince, “William’s waiting for me in the library. I guess our little match went on longer than I noticed.”

“Give him my regards, will you,” Ulrich said dryly, taking a gulp of water. Yumi shook her head and stood up, gathering her things together.

“I’m not kicking him in the balls, Ulrich,” she retorted, “Especially not when we’re partnered for a presentation.”

“Would make for a good presentation,” he continued, his expression a tad bit soured. Yumi gave him a look.

“Sparring really brings out the sass in you, you know that? See you later.” She shouldered her bag, quietly noticing that he didn’t bid her good-bye as she left. Not entirely unlike him. Still didn’t mean it didn’t get under her skin if she let herself dwell on it.

Skipping a shower, Yumi tried to wipe as much sweat off as she could before meeting William in the library like she should’ve twenty minutes ago. She could feel how much her body needed the shower she skipped, but she didn’t particularly care what others thought at that moment. Most of all William. It had been a while since she was able to see Ulrich in his prime like that and it made her strangely comfortable to know that she could bring a smile out of him. Even if that smile was a cocky, intense smirk from fighting someone at his level. It counted as a smile in Ulrich’s book, and Yumi wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world, even good grades and William’s patience.

Her heart was still racing when she entered the library, but it gradually waned as time went by and she began to miss it. God something,  _anything_  than putting this presentation together. As much as she could ace projects like this, she wasn’t interested at the moment. Why she was particularly antsy, she didn’t know. Maybe the sparring match had roused her as much as it did to Ulrich. After the afternoon with William was over she decided she would track Ulrich down to spar again. Let the excess energy out.

Her phone buzzed and, noticing it was from Jeremie, she picked it up without hesitation despite William’s curious stare.

“Yumi, are you free?” the boy genius asked. The girl picked up on the apprehension in his voice but paid it no mind, at least, not in front of William.

“I could be, what’s going on?” The project wasn’t due for another week and they had already made substantial progress.

“Just some weird stuff in the factory. The others are coming so you don’t have to.”

“No, it’s alright,” Yumi said, jumping at the opportunity to get outside again, “I’ll be there, see you in a moment!”

With a brief (and kind of shoddy) explanation to William, she packed her bag and left, making a short detour to deter any followers before heading off into the woods. Catching up with the others just before they reached the sewer cap, she quietly noticed that Ulrich had taken the time to shower, unlike her. All traces of sweat and fatigue had been wiped from his face and his expression was hard and alert. His lips were thin, perhaps pressed thinner at her appearance. Yumi cocked her head to the side, narrowing her eyes at him. Ulrich scoffed again and looked away. The others greeted her much more kindly and vocally. If they took notice of her silent discourse with Ulrich they didn’t say. Then again they hardly ever said anything about their relationship in front of either of them, really. Still she smiled, a bit dryly in Ulrich’s direction.

“There was just some activity in the factory last night. Could’ve been leftover from the storm but—,”

“Okay okay, we get it, spooky scary, it could be XANA,” Odd interrupted Jeremie, waving his hands wildly, “It’s okay Einstein, we’re professionals! Pro-AI-hunters, right?”

Both Yumi and Aelita rolled their eyes at him while Ulrich sarcastically agreed. The Einstein in question gave Odd an indignant glare, but no harm was really done. Yumi bent down to pry the sewer cap off, knowing that Jeremie would fill them in with more-than-necessary information no matter what the pea-brain said to interrupt him.

Just as her fingers curled around the edges of the cap Jeremie’s laptop exploded with frantic beeps and alarms. All of them started, exchanging glances with one another.

“Kind of an opportune time for XANA to attack, don’t you think?” Aelita commented as Odd shrugged.

“Good thing we’re all here, then, huh?” The lanky boy stepped forward to clap Jeremie on the back, but Ulrich yanked him back before he could do so.

“H-Hey, Ulrich, what’s going on?” Odd yelped indignantly. Everyone tensed, turning their attentions to the two roommates. Ulrich swatted at his head before Odd could duck, “Jeez! Come on!”

“What, you didn’t  _feel_ that bug drop onto you?” Ulrich retorted. Visibly relaxing, Odd brushed himself off, checking himself for any bugs that Ulrich could’ve missed.

“No, what did it look like?” Odd asked, twisting his body around until he almost fell down onto the ground.

“Small and silver and gross-looking, like an earwig,” Ulrich supplemented. Odd turned towards him as Aelita descended the ladder into the sewers.

“Like the bug on your shoulder right now?”

“ _What_ ,” Ulrich exclaimed, making a futile struggle against the bug that had suddenly gained a lot more dexterity than before, dodging his hand. Jeremie’s eyes widened as he watched Ulrich struggle with the bug.

“That’s not a bug, that’s a microbot! I bet that’s what the factory made last night!” The boy exclaimed. Before anyone could react further the bot latched onto the edge of Ulrich’s ear. Ulrich yelped, stumbling away from the rest of the group.

“Jeremie, what’s it doing?” Yumi asked, her voice tense and upset. Odd had immediately put himself in between Ulrich and Jeremie, trying to usher Jeremie down the ladder as quick as possible. Jeremie opened his mouth to respond as the bug started to crawl into Ulrich’s ear. With a shriek of pain and disgust Ulrich slammed himself against a tree, unable to shake the bug. An intense wave of disgust went through Yumi as she saw the silver thing burrow and dig, its spined abdomen disappearing into Ulrich’s head. The boy crumpled into the roots of the tree, passed out. Yumi inhaled sharply. Passed out? Or  _worse_?

“Jeremie…,” she whispered. Odd sprinted to his buddy’s side, shaking his shoulders to try and wake him. Aelita clung to the top rungs of the ladder, her eyes wide and fearful.

“Factory made bug,” Jeremie managed to choke out, “XANA activated bug.”

“But what’s it  _doing_ , what did it  _do_ to him?!” Yumi demanded, feeling her legs go weak. She hated it when her legs went weak. Fastest runner in Kadic, proud in the strength of her kicks; it was an awful thing to feel when the best part of her threatened to fail her.

“I-I,” Jeremie stuttered, staring at their friend’s limp body as Odd tried terrible quips on him to get him to waken out of anger. Yumi, unable to look at Ulrich any longer, looked to Jeremie, hoping he would come up with an explanation out of nowhere despite having zero evidence. He had seemingly done so before to them, why couldn’t he do so now? Why wasn’t there any warning, no explanation, no time to let this sink in  _now_?

“H-Hey, Ulrich, you okay buddy?” Odd cried in relief as Ulrich began to stir, “You had us worried there for a moment, what happen—,”

Ulrich’s fist shot up, slamming into Odd’s stomach. The force of it sent the scrawny boy flying backwards, his arms pinwheeling until he crashed into Jeremie. Aelita dipped her head beyond the rim of the sewer cap. Odd coughed, not unlike Ulrich had earlier that day, then wheezed.

“Houston, we got a problem…,”

Ulrich picked himself up, rigid and angry. Yumi stepped forward then, putting herself in between Ulrich and the rest of her friends. His eyes opened and flickered, XANA’s symbol replacing their pupils. Yumi’s feet, solid in her combat boots, slid into a stance. Her heart was pounding again, but, unlike in the library, she wouldn’t miss this.

“Go to the factory, all of you, I’ll distract him!”

“O-Okay,” Odd managed to gasp, “Watch out for his left hook!”

“I know how to fight him,” Yumi growled lowly, her eyes narrowing to a deadly glare at the boy XANA had stolen from her. The others did as she was told, closing the sewers behind her. Yumi watched Ulrich’s body as it hunched and curled like a feral beast. His feet were planted firmly on the ground, so very much unlike the real Ulrich when he was itching for a fight. Her heart ached. Surely this was a reversible thing, surely the bug hadn’t actually  _harmed_ him, surely if it did it was something they could easily fix. Yumi didn’t want to lose a sparring partner like Ulrich.

Yumi just didn’t want to lose  _Ulrich_.

“You really don’t know how to fight in his body, huh, XANA?” Yumi taunted through gritted teeth, “C'mon, follow me and maybe I’ll show you how!”

She turned on her heel and ran, sprinting deeper into the woods. XANA’s heavy footsteps in Ulrich’s body crashed through the undergrowth behind her. Part of her was glad that XANA was targeting her over her friends. The other part of her winced in pain. Sparring with Ulrich was one thing, actually  _fighting_  him was another, possessed by XANA or not.

Really though the fact that he  _had_ been possessed by XANA, thanks to the microbot, made this even worse. They—the Lyoko Warriors, weren’t  _supposed_ to be affected by this sort of thing. It’s why they took Jeremie to Lyoko. It’s why XANA had failed every other time he had tried to do it. Now that XANA had found a way…now that Yumi was forced to fight or even harm Ulrich…she didn’t know if she could measure her fear. How much would this destroy the trust the group had for each other? What if one got seriously hurt from the other? What if she got possessed? What if XANA made her go after her  _family_ once she was possessed?

She couldn’t bear the thought.

And if there was any part of Ulrich still awake enough in there to understand what was going on, she knew he wouldn’t be able to bear the thought either. Hell maybe she should drag William out here, have XANA go after  _him_. At least then Ulrich wouldn’t regret anything.

Ulrich’s knee buried into the small of her back and Yumi tumbled forward into a heap of limbs, crashing through ferns and getting scratched on the stray sticks and bramble. Scraping herself together and onto her feet as quickly as possible, Yumi backed away as Ulrich—rather, XANA—stepped into the clearing after her.

“You still in there, Ulrich?” She breathed as her hands closed into fists. As she raised them to defend herself, she pulled a lock of hair behind her ear, “Because if you are, and if this doesn’t end well, I need you to know that this wasn’t your fault.”

A bolt of electricity shot from the palm of his hand, destroying the tree branch above her. Leaping and rolling out of the way as the branch crashed to the ground, Yumi tried to stifle a hiccup.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Ulrich,” she continued, “Much as our match earlier today might say otherwise,”

XANA took a step forward and Yumi reacted on impulse, roundhouse kicking Ulrich right in his ribs. She felt his ribs give way against her foot before the crack hit her ears; the force of her kick had broken one or several of them. XANA flinched, Ulrich’s image fizzing before her for a moment, but was otherwise unfazed. Yumi bit her lip. If broken bones wouldn’t stop him, what the hell would?

Yumi turned, changing her direction to the Hermitage for resources to hide and fight, but before she could take more than three steps Ulrich was in front of her, rage contorting his face as the symbols blazed brightly in his eyes. Yumi snarled at him, unafraid as she could be, before he socked her in the gut, his hand wrapping around her neck and pressing her against a tree. Choking, Yumi let out small wails and whimpers as he raised her higher. So much for being taller than him.

Mashing her feet into his face and trying to pry and bite his hand away, Yumi growled and snarled, fighting desperately. The growls soon turned back to whimpers as oxygen began to leave her. Spots danced in her vision and her frantic flailing began to weaken against him. She felt the edges of her eyes burn, but if she was really crying she didn’t know. Part of her was angry at herself, for not jumping to Ulrich’s aid earlier, for letting XANA get the best of her so soon, for letting down all of her friends. With a gag and a raspy choke, she managed to wheeze one word out, riddled with spit.

“ _Ulrich…_ ,”

He slammed her against the tree to silence her. The spots dancing in her vision blotted out more than she could actually see and she felt herself dipping into darkness. Of all the people she thought she’d lose to, Ulrich wasn’t one of them. Ties and truces and  _I’ll get you next time_ s, but never really losing. Her fingers clawed desperately at the hand wrapped around her neck. God she hoped Ulrich wasn’t conscious enough to see this.

Yumi felt his hand loosen and release her and she fell to the ground with a grateful gasp of air. Before she could relax, though, Ulrich let out an earsplitting cry of pain, crumpling to the forest floor pathetically. The edges of his limbs twitched and shook as he took in pained, irregular gasps, body curled ever so slightly as it began to bead in sweat from the pain.

Coughing and regaining herself faster than was healthy for his sake, Yumi pulled herself up onto her knees and reached forward.

“Ulrich…?” she called cautiously, fear lacing her voice, “Ulrich are you okay?”

She recoiled, seeing the silver earwig drunkenly crawl out of his ear then fall away, twitching in its death throes. Sucking in a breath of courage, she gingerly placed her hand on Ulrich’s shoulder.

“Ulrich, please,  _please_ tell me you’re alright,” she nearly begged, hoping XANA hadn’t caused extra damage to him. Ulrich heaved in a gasp cut short by an agonizing shriek, opened one (thankfully  _normal_ ) eye, and looked at her.

“ _I don’t want to hurt you, Ulrich_? When you said you’d hold me responsible later, I didn’t expect this,” he rasped through many cries and breaths of pain. At first Yumi was frozen in fear, but as his words kept spilling out she relaxed more and more, a relieved (if terrified) smile resting on her face. Oh. His ribs. She had broken his ribs.

Closing her hand warmly against his shoulder, she winced, “I-I’m sorry, I just, y'know. You’d do the same to me, right?”

Ulrich stared at her for a very long time, “Right.”

Somehow she didn’t believe him.

It was, in Jeremie’s words,  _too dangerous_ to launch a return trip, leaving Ulrich to wallow in immense pain. A trip to the nurse, a brief trip to the  _hospital_ , and he was left with ragged breaths and painkillers. On second thought, he often complained to Odd, this wasn’t such a great idea if XANA would launch another attack so soon. Odd said it wouldn’t happen. Jeremie and Aelita weren’t so sure. Yumi had accompanied him to the hospital and nurse’s office, although to stay with them at the hospital she had to lie through her tight lips that their  _relationship_ was a bit more than they had established it to be. Still, Ulrich didn’t know about that, wouldn’t know that she had willingly called him her boyfriend just to be with him when he was in pain. That was alright with her. She brought him back to his dorm room while Odd was out walking Kiwi. Setting him carefully on his bed, a strange thought suddenly struck her.

“Ulrich, wait a minute. You said something weird earlier.”

“You mean something different than screaming in pain?” he retorted. Yumi simply stared at him.

“You said  _I don’t want to hurt you, Ulrich_. You quoted me. Except…I said that when you were…,”

Ulrich stared at her, long and steady. Never before had he held her gaze as long as he did then. Then he sniffed, turning away and gingerly adjusting himself against his bed.

“Yeah. Let’s not talk about that.”

Yumi looked away as well, down to her hands. A small, knowing, and sad smirk pushed her cheek up in place of a wince. Her voice came soft next, grabbing the moment alone with him while she could.

“I really am sorry about your ribs.”

Ulrich smirked, toothy again like he was in a sparring match with her.

“Yeah. I bet you are.”


End file.
